It happens to all of us. Lurking deep within our vanity drawers and bathroom cabinets is an arsenal of long-forgotten products from disappointing buys or those side-items and freebies from bulk buys. Relegated to being the wrong shade or texture or just not quite right, these poor items wither away in the dark recesses of our beauty stashes, rarely seeing the light of day.

I bought some sort of small makeup bundle from Memebox over a year ago. It included a bunch of items that I really wanted to try, just so happening to include a super-pigmented coral lip gloss, that, while I wasn’t super into it,I wasn’t going to not buy the whole box because of it.

Fast forward, the package arrives, and I begin to try all the lovely new things. When I get to the lip liquid, I don’t think I had ever tried a worse product: the shade was *SO* wrong and ugly on me, and the consistency was super gross and would not stay put, leaving streaks of bright orange over my regular lips. It quickly got tossed to the bottom of the pile.

The perfectly curved doe foot brush is about the only thing I liked about this product…at first

But fast forward again to earlier this year, and a brief stint with replicating make up artist PONY’s YouTube video looks, and I’m suddenly scrambling through my stash looking for a coral something-or-other to slap on my lips.

Not being a regular coral lip type person, the Memebox tint was the only thing on hand.

I put it on as carefully as I could and it was sadly just as terrible as I remembered. I let it sit as I dried my hair, vowing to take it off once I was done. Then, something amazing happened.

I began to blot off the horrid substance with a tissue, and was shocked to see a gorgeous tint left behind.

Now that summer is here and coral lips don’t look as strange as they do in deep wintertime, I’ve busted out this tint to see if I can’t give a really crappy product new life.

Before

Waiting for the liquid to dry

After

For a nice, subtle tint

1) Make sure your lips are prepped as this product will settle into and emphasize any dry, flaky bits (I am telling you from experience). Give them a little love with a quick exfoliation and a touch of lip balm. Let it sink in (perhaps while you finish the rest of your makeup?).

2) Apply a thin layer of the lip liquid, let it dry for 30 seconds or so, then blot it off.

3) Now that all the prep work is done, apply a nice, even layer like you would for an actual lip tint. Leave it on for 5-8 minutes (it’ll get all gross and tacky).

4) Once it’s at the prime of “eww-ness,” go ahead and blot it off with a tissue. You should be left with a gorgeous tint.

*the more you apply in step 3, and the longer you let it sit, will determine how bright of a tint you get and, therefore, how long your tint will last.

One lip “tint” : 2 looks
If you’re looking for something a little less time consuming, this tint actually can serve as a pretty blush as well.

If you are wearing cream foundation, you can just dab on a little of this liquid and blend with your fingers or a makeup sponge.

Is that too bright for you?

You can turn down the color pay-off by mixing the liquid with some liquid/cream foundation before applying as mentioned above.

Its a bit darker in real life (camera kept washing out the color :P), but you can see how the liquid transforms from a bright orange to a natural glow , especially when mixed with foundation!

I really like layering this blush with a deeper pink one for a more dimensional color. I think it would make a really cool trend!

I definitely don’t advocate buying products that you don’t like of course, but with kbeauty where most of the time you HAVE to buy it online, the chances of occasionally getting the wrong shade or a product that just isn’t all you thought it would be is inevitable. While sometimes a product is just a horrible dud, I thinks it’s always best to take the “waste not, want not” approach, and do your best to give it a second life!

Perhaps a lip product in your stash is your next fav blush? Who knows! Anything you’ve been wanting to “recycle” or “repurpose?” Let me know down below! 🙂